ARGH!

Yep, that's frustration you're hearing. I took the monsters along when I went out to work a rodeo last night, and I had planned to have at least one of Thing 2's new shoes done in time for him to wear. Yeah, the best laid plans and all that....

First, I kept getting interrupted by people calling. Well, actually, first I kept procrastinating and doing other stuff, and second, I got interrupted. Then I had major technical difficulties. Don't know if it was the leather, the thread, the needle, or all around bad sewing mojo. But I finally gave up. I had run out of the gold jeanstitch thread after stitching down the casings on the heels, so I switched to the cream upholstery thread I have. Got the trim and the toe guards stitched down, then started to stitch the uppers to the soles. I have one down and still probably a third of the other to go, but that's where the majorly bad mojo occurred. And I was getting awfully low on the upholstery thread, too. Oh, yeah, and I went through three leather needles, trying to rescue the attempt that way. No such luck.

So today I bought more jeanstitch and upholstery thread at WM while grocery shopping (along with a neat variegated green that I hope will be showing up on some green "disco" pants soon), but WM does not carry leather needles. Oh, darn, I have to go to JAF again....where I was good and walked out with the leather needles and three colors of heavy polyester thread. I keep hearing that polyester thread is best for shoes, since cotton will wick, but I've never looked closely enough to realize that the only kind of polyester only thread JAF carries is the "heavy dual-duty XP" thread. So I'll see how that works...maybe on the denim pair. Oh yeah, and I'm also planning to put a Thomas the Tank Engine applique on the denim pair. We'll see how that goes....hopefully later this afternoon....